


Level Seven

by SaraNoH



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Christmas, Feelstide, Fluff, M/M, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-06
Updated: 2013-12-06
Packaged: 2018-01-02 19:56:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1060961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaraNoH/pseuds/SaraNoH
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There were endless consequences to the Battle of New York.  Two of them were the reason why on the seventeenth of every month since April, the day Loki’d stabbed Phil on the Helicarrier, Sitwell and Barton met for a drink.  The two reasons being that, one, SHIELD had bumped Barton’s clearance level down to five once the dust had settled, a generous move considering his hand (even if it had been god-possessed) in things, and two,  Jasper had been promoted to Level Seven, one of several agents who’d risen in the ranks to fill the shoes of their fallen counterpart.</p><p>Except being Level Seven meant Jasper knew one very important piece of intel that Clint didn’t.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Level Seven

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first of two Feelstide fics I’m authoring this year. The prompt for this one is “Phil finds a way to get Clint a Christmas gift -- even though Clint doesn't yet know that Phil's still alive.”
> 
> There are some very slight spoilers for _Captain America: The Winter Soldier_.

The tradition started in May, on the seventeenth to be exact. It was exactly one month since they lost Phil and somehow the three of them—Barton, Romanoff, and himself—found their way to a hole in the wall bar on the west side to drink to their respect to their fallen friend. It actually wasn’t total coincidence that they were all in the same place. Barton arrived there first; he’d just wrapped up being investigated by SHIELD to make sure there weren’t any more influences playing with his mind. He’d been cleared to come back to duty, but not until he’d finished a hefty round of psych visits, and when he did return to missions he would be operating at a Level Five clearance. Jasper believed it was an incredibly kind gesture on Fury’s part to let Barton walk away as unscathed as that.

Romanoff must’ve trailed her counterpart to the bar; she had her mother hen expression going strong. Jasper’d seen it often in the last month whenever she hovered around Barton as he waited to walk into meetings or as she paced the halls outside of the wing of psych offices. Not that Jasper ever dared to make a comment about her behavior; he valued his life, thank you very much.

He’d just lucked out in finding the pair of them. Well, not so much lucked out as all three of them knowing where Phil came to watch NFL games since the bartender was one of the few fellow Bears fans in the city. It stung in Jasper’s chest not to see Phil sitting at the bar, rolling his eyes at the TV screen as he took a swig from a bottle of beer. Instead he was greeted by the sight of Barton looking beyond lost and Romanoff probably faking the air of _I have everything together_ for her companion’s sake.

The three of them drank together that May. No one mentioned Phil. No one said anything at all. They drank in silence and, after a few hours, they drifted their separate ways.

In June, it was just Barton sitting at the bar when Jasper walked in. Romanoff was out in the field with Rogers, and Jasper was taking a two-hour break from monitoring their progress. His respite might or might not have had something to do with an encrypted message Romanoff embedded in her most recent sitrep.

If Barton looked lost a month ago, it was ten times worse now. The feeling was completely understandable; half of SHIELD still caught themselves in including Agent Coulson on meeting invites or questions on how to handle things. And it’d been years since Barton and Romanoff were separated when it came to extended mission work. Jasper’d noticed a time or two when Barton’d tried to access Romanoff’s files, but due to his demoted status, he lacked the access. So if some vague status updates were texted to one of several burner phones in Barton’s possession, no one needed to know about it. He wished he could’ve done more, but instead he just quietly sat and drank his beer.

July was the first time they talked. Jasper waited for Barton to speak first, and it was all about work. He talked about providing cover on cargo missions, always being on a team. The words and tone of voice didn’t sound like whining, but Jasper’d known the man for five years: he knew complaining when he heard it. But if pushed, Jasper believed that Barton would clam up about getting into more personal details of his life, so he just listened. 

August brought the first rumblings of a possible return of their fallen friend. Jasper danced around the subject when he and Barton met at the bar on the seventeenth by asking if the man had heard anything about old ghosts. Jasper watched the archer’s jaw clench and eyes shift back and forth between fury and hope. He could certainly understand the range in emotions, granted not with the depth of feeling Clint possessed. They didn’t say anything for the rest of their visit.

In September, Jasper had confirmation, a perk of being promoted to Level Seven to help fill the gaps left by your dead friend. Or not-so-dead friend. There was a briefing two days prior for a select group of agents—those with high enough clearance as well as close ties to Phil. The explanation given wasn’t necessarily one that sat well in Jasper’s gut, nor was the cover idea known as Tahiti, but his friend had come back from the dead and Jasper tried to keep his focus on that.

Except he couldn’t tell Barton. He sat at the bar and literally bit his tongue whenever he wasn’t sipping his beer. The other man danced around trying to get information on how Romanoff and Rogers were doing, and it was all Jasper could do not to tell him that he was asking about the wrong people.

In October, Barton opened the conversation thirty minutes in with, “You heard anything about May going back into the field?” Jasper knew everything but could say nothing. He kept his eyes locked on the TV, a Bears game that both of them looked at but never really saw.

“What’d you hear?”

Barton shrugged. “Drivin’ a bus, but that’s all I know. Must be a pretty sweet ride to drag her away from her office lair and back into the thick of it.”

In November, Jasper did everything he could to have his monthly run in with Barton two days early. He dropped as many hints as he could that he needed to get to the Hub as soon as possible because even though only Level Sevens were supposed to know Phil was alive, the idiot was walking around for everyone to see.

But Barton was on convoy duty. “What’d I miss?” he asked two days later.

Jasper shrugged. “Me getting shot with a tranq dart by some fourteen-year-old science girl.”

It was the first time Jasper’d seen Clint smile in seven months.

Three days prior to their monthly meetup in December, Jasper was busy doing paperwork and minding his own business when he looked up to find Phil standing in front of his desk. “Still don’t believe you’re not actually a ghost,” Jasper muttered after cursing a blue streak.

“That makes two of us,” Phil replied.

The tone sat funnily with Jasper and his mind flashed back to the countless warnings they’d all received in not telling Phil what he’d gone through to walk among the living. “What do you need?” Jasper asked. Phil placed a flimsy gift on his desk. It was roughly eight by eleven inches in area and about a quarter of an inch thick, and wrapped in shiny green paper. “The hell is this?”

“A gift,” Phil answered dryly. As much as Jasper missed Phil, the sass was still annoying. Before Jasper could press further, his old friend elaborated. “I know what you do on the seventeenth,” he said quietly. “Thank you for that.” He gave a small nod to the package. “Give that to him, will you?”

“Phil, I can’t say anything.”

“I’m not asking you to tell him. Just give him the package.”

Three days later, Jasper tossed the object onto the bar next to Barton’s beer. The other man eyed the shiny green paper a moment before snarking, “Didn’t realize we’d reach the gift-giving stage of the relationship.”

“Just shut up and open the damn thing,” Jasper ordered. He sipped his beer and watched out of the corner of his eye as Barton made efficient work on the wrapping. He almost chocked on his drink when he say what the mystery gift was—a My Little Pony coloring book. “Umm, there has to be some mistake. I don’t think—“

“Where the hell did you get this?” Barton asked in a low growl, eyes locked on the cover.

“I can’t tell you.” Barton’s head snapped in his direction and Jasper raised hands in a defensive gesture. “I can’t tell you,” he repeated more slowly.

The other man turned his attention back to the coloring book, fingers of his left hand splayed across the cover. “Four years ago,” he started quietly, “we were on a mission in one of the countries that ends in _-stan_.” He paused to wave his right hand in a lazy circle in the air. “They all run together anymore, I don’t really know. Anyway, it was Christmas day and the two of us were holed up in this cabin waiting for an extraction, but a storm blew in and it was going to be another three days. We were both bored out of our minds, so we started snooping and he pulled out this coloring book with horses on it and a handful of crayons. God knows why they were there in the first place.” He traced his fingers over the cartoon horses on the cover with a delicate touch. “We killed time coloring in the pages. We must’ve looked like idiots when the extraction team came in—the two of us hunched over this little coloring book debating on what color the wings should be.” His eyes glazed over in memories from long ago, and it took every ounce of restraint Jasper possessed not to blurt out that things like that don’t have to stay in the past. “Every year after that,” Barton continued, “he got me a damn My Little Pony coloring book for Christmas. Said maybe this year I’d color the wings in blue like they were supposed to be.”

Jasper sat and drank his beer, turning his eyes to the beat up counter out of fear of saying words he’d been ordered to avoid. 

“Sitwell,” Barton asked in a near whisper, “is he… I mean, you didn’t know. Is this from… I guess it could be from Nat—she knew about the joke—but…”

Jasper looked at him and allowed himself the faintest hint of a smile. “Merry Christmas, Barton.”


End file.
